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EFF And MPAA On Broadcast Flags
mpawlo writes: "Greplaw reports that a broadcast flag is a digital tagging technique used for television programs distributed through digital TV stations. The broadcast flag is used as information stating that the program may not be redistributed. It is not your everyday digital watermarking technique. The idea is to mandate a standard for a broadcast flag. The content providers, through The Motion Picture Association ('MPAA'), will most likely aim for the standard to be lobbied into a law through The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group. Hence, the law would require all hardware able to play the digital TV content to carry broadcast flag equipment (not playing unmarked content). The Electronic Frontier Foundation ('EFF') fears that a law stipulating the standard would threaten creativity. The MPAA has published a list of frequently asked questions ('FAQ') regarding broadcast flags. The EFF has commented the MPAA FAQ."
It is already legal to record anything shown on TV for personal use so I don't see how this extra 'bit flag' could become a reality...
Is this an example of "Not Invented Here" syndrome? Here in Europe we have had digital TV for some time, so why does the USA need to re-invent the "rules", why not just use the standards already in use in Europe, and which work well?
so if a show is fine to redistribute, it cant be played on a tv?
From EFF:
What is a broadcast flag?
The broadcast flag is a sequence of digital bits embedded in a television program that signals that the program must be protected from unauthorized redistribution. It does not distort the viewed picture in any way. Implementation of this broadcast flag will permit digital TV stations to obtain high value content and assure consumers a continued source of attractive, free, over-the-air programming without limiting the consumer's ability to make personal copies.
People who do bulk pirating can get rid of that kind of protection easily. At the extreme, they would do one step of analog copying, then put it back into digital for an unlimited number of generations.
We will have to start getting mod chips for our cable boxes now :)
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arj qvtvgny gryrivfvba frgf jvyy cebivqr n zhpu uvture dhnyvgl bs cvpgher naq fbhaq gb pbafhzref.
Jung vf gur OCQT?
Gur Oebnqpnfg Cebgrpgvba Qvfphffvba Tebhc vf n jbexvat tebhc pbzcevfrq bs n ynetr ahzore bs pbagrag cebivqref, gryrivfvba oebnqpnfgref,
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fhofgnagvny fhccbeg sbe gur synt. Gur tebhc pbzcyrgrq vgf zvffvba jvgu gur eryrnfr bs gur OCQT Ercbeg.
Jub perngrq gur oebnqpnfg synt?"
Gur Oebnqpnfg Synt jnf perngrq ol gur Nqinaprq Gryrivfvba Flfgrzf Pbzzvggrr (NGFP), juvpu vf gur fgnaqneqf-frggvat betnavmngvba gung
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-- La1d, killed by a newt, while helpless.
The EFF version has (I believe, based on a quick scan) all of the content from both the MPAA version and the EFF version.
You can skip MPAA document and go right to the EFF version without missing anything.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
In Canada you can legally distribute TV after it has been aired. It's all fine and dandy if Canadian systems disregard this flag or of the flag is not present, but if they don't that is another matter.
...protecting content, broadcast or otherwise, will spur the availability of high definition content and thus spur innovation for the systems, devices and services needed to deliver and support them in a broadband environment.
They sure love the word spur, which is derived from the term used to kick the shit out of a horse to get it going. A spur is a sharp instrument worn on the ankle of an abusive cowboy to beat a tired horse into submission.
Is this what the MPAA has in store for consumers? Wouldn't you love to have the MPAA spur your living room technology?
Where are you?
Once they lock down electronic media, they will want to plug "the analog hole."
We are in the middle of a slow descent back into illiteracy. It's no economics and lack of education driving it. It's the people in control. They want to control you, the information you can get, and how you can use that information.
Broadcast news is insipid, but print is a little better, for now. This is largely because it's easier to spot stupidity in written form, when you're not distracted by boobies, animated graphics and short sound/video clips.
Once you can't control your electronic entertainment anymore, because of DRM, broadcast tags, Fritz Hollings's legislation, Palladium, etc., what will you do?
Newspapers and books? How long will those be allowed to exist in their current forms? Paper?!?! How insecure! There will be e-books and e-paper, as in Minority Report. And you won't have control over those either.
In Minority Report, there was scene of a guy on a train reading an "E-USA Today." The front page, which he was reading, changed to the Official Story about the A-Large PreCriminal without the reader requesting it. The reader was told what to read.
Who doubts that this will not be turned into reality?
The problem with science fiction is that it's pretty depressing. So much of it depicts a totalitarian future of some sort. These stories capture and guide the imaginations and creative energy of the current and future generations of designers and engineers. How long have people been working on making things they've seen in Star Trek and Star Wars? And more depressing works, like Minority report?
It's all very anti-freedom, anti-citizen, and stupid.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
It is pretty clear that the MPAA doesn't want piracy of any kind. Even if they have to spend (or give to the right government official) millions to save a few pennies and piss off generation of people to come.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Q : Even if the motion picture and other industries come up with a system to protect this content with a broadcast flag, the security technology will just be broken into and made worthless in a very short time. Given that, what's the point?
MPAA Answer : It is unfortunate that some people may attempt to illegally hack or break into this security system. However, even if a few are successful, the flag will not be worthless. Most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag.
What they really mean : Ofcourse they are going to crack this half assed security system. But we would go on pretending that its unbreakable. And we would hunt down and sue any half intelligent intellectual out there who attempt to crack it even for academic purposes. And yes we understand that even if someone cracks it, the majority of the dumb ass public wouldnt care, or wouldnt know, and hence most of our investment is still secure. i.e. until some one else figures out a way to get this crack to the masses. Then we would just put out another FAQ.
Rapid Nirvana
not playing unmarked content
Where did the poster get this bit of info? I see nothing about this in the FAQ, which seems to indicate the opposite, and the FAQ appears to be the only deep link in the article.
The only purpose this seems to serve is to allow the Broadcast providers know when someone stupid is redistibuting their stuff.
Long before this is implemented, people will start making their own quality television programs, and distributing them on the internet, probably under the BSD(tm) licence.
I personally considered making a proper anime series myself, and giving it away for nothing, but I worked out that it would take about 9 months to make each episode, and it wasn't practical. Once the Ogg(tm) video codec is available, though, it will become more technically viable, and if I can get some other animators interested, (only need 3 or 4), it may well become a reality. Watch this space.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This, along with the M$ stuff, is drifting towards "only approved content will play on your [TV/Rio/PC/PDA]" Who approves the content? Whoops! First amendment!
GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!!
So basically they are saying that every video playback software on computers would have to support this? Would this kill open-source video playback software?
On the other hand, like most copy protection measures, it will surely be cracked within a day or two.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Regret to report that the bird is not compatible with mozilla 1.0, please fix this, thanks.
The last point of the EFF FAQ:
Q: When the broadcast flag is implemented, can I record any TV program with my existing digital player/recorder and watch it later at more convenient time?
MPAA answer: Yes. If you own an early model digital player/recorder, you will be able to record and playback time-shifted digital recordings of flagged broadcasts. These digital recordings will also play on legacy DVD players. However, when Broadcast Flag-compliant DTV receivers are introduced in the marketplace, their recordings will only play on other compliant players and not on older (legacy) devices. Of course, you can still record and playback digital programs with any existing analog videocassettes recorders/players. The broadcast flag does not affect what you have been able to do in the analog world.
EFF comment: This answer confirms that "Compliant" devices produced under the BPDG-proposed rules are less capable than current-generation devices.
i wonder if they also record device-specific information. like preventing me to watch a movie i recorded at my friend's house (digitally of course)
What happened to DVD players will happen to this. Remember when all DVD players had region encoding and forced everybody to watch movies only in their region in which nobody liked. Then electronic companies started to produce alternative region free and multi region DVD players that allowed people to watch whatever they want. Now, just about all stores cary alternative players since they sell better than the *crippled* less functional players
That is what will happen with this. Some electronic companies are going to release recorders that will bypass the compliance requirement once they relize that the compliant recorders are not selling well(who is going to buy a recorder that can't record anything?).
Too bad mod chip companies can't go public (without lawsuit lashings) cuz stuff like this always would mean spikes in stocks
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Broadcast flags will do absolutely nothing to deter the Internet trading of copyrighted broadcast video. Anybody interested in publishing recorded video will just use known hacks to extract video from their Tivo or other recording device.The flags may deter Joe Sixpack from copying a recorded video, but Joe is not the person who publishes original videostreams to filesharing networks anyway.
As with the RIAA, the MPAA is using filesharing as a pretense to make a big powergrab over their potential competitors.
They want to be recognized as the only legitimate video content publishers, thus locking out potential upstart competitors that may be empowered by new video distribution networks.
And they want to dictate all terms to consumer electronics manufacturers, who in many cases are their direct competitors. It becomes much easier to shut out electronics manufacturers that are not part of the MPAA when you are drafting the legislation that governs their rules of business.
I currently use a hauppage bt848 card and NVrec to use my home system as a PVR. The card I have was cheap, but only records analog. The HD capable capture cards started at around $400 or so when I last looked!
Help me out, does this mean I aught to buy one of those before this passes, so as to be able to capture HD content in the future... or is the HD format as yet insufficiently negotiated/agreed upon by the players, such that if i were to drop $400 on this HD tuner and capture card, that it will be useless in a year when they come out with an new encrypted HD standard.
Basically, what I want to know, is how -standard- and commited is the current HD protocal?
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
This restriction (which is not part of current-generation digital TV tuner cards) creates significant "collateral damage" to home recording rights and innovation. For example, it effectively means that digital TV content can only be viewed with "approved" software, instead of the literally hundreds of video recording, editing, and playing applications available today. It also means that open source software will not be able to record or play back "marked" digital TV broadcasts.
UMM can we all say deCSS?? ohh ye Linux will not be supporteted there crappy flag will be easily ( and the admit it themselfs in the last ansrew ) craked and 2600 will probably be in court againShin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
Q: Even if the motion picture and other industries come up with a system to protect this content with a broadcast flag, the security technology will just be broken into and made worthless in a very short time. Given that, whats the point?
MPAA answer: It is unfortunate that some people may attempt to illegally hack or break into this security system. However, even if a few are successful, the flag will not be worthless. Most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag.
So if most people are honest and will not attempt to circumvent the flag, why not just trust the people not to do the horrible, dishonest deeds this measure wants to prevent?
The only intent of the broadcast flag is to restrict the unauthorized redistribution of broadcast content in order to insure that high value content will be made available to consumers over free TV
If the flagged content is going to be free, why are they so concerned about "unauthorized redistribution" of it?
Stallman's "Right to Read"
I guess, what doesn't kill us makes us stupid.
The trend I am talking about is the recent trend of organizations who supply services and/or content are no longer thinking about what the recipients of that service want? The MPAA and RIAA are continuously aiming for more restrictive controls, legislation, and whatnot. This just does not make sense to me. How can it be possible that an organization whose sole purpose is to make money by supplying consumers with what they want no longer be paying attention to what the consumers want? It baffles me, that they are now attempting to lock-in the recipient of their services, rather than adapt and give the recipient what they want.
Why is it that organizations so huge can become so blatantly selfish? Without consumers, they cannot make money -- their ultimate goal. Yes this is also selfish, but not in the same sense that they are no longer paying attention to what is wanted of them. They have been forced with a situation where consumers wants have changed, and they can no longer continue to make money doing what they currently do. They have to options, keep giving the consumers what they are getting now -- but what they no longer want. Or, give them what they want.
The choice they chose is obvious.
It is just disturbing how organizations like this have lost so much respect for the buying public.
Q: Are all TV programs going to be flagged?
MPAA answer: No. The broadcasters that transmit the programming will set the broadcast flag as "on or off" based on private contractual agreements with content providers. Content providers can choose, on a program-by-program basis, whether the flag will be turned on.
Translation: Excluding infomercials and ads, yes. It is illegal to record anything else, since you, the consumer, are thieves, murderers, pirating pices of shit and can not be trusted. Only big business can be trusted and knows what is good for us^H^Hyou.
They go on to say what seems like... aw who cares. There's so much in that FAQ that just makes me want to grab one of their execs, throw em in a chair, and grill them about what they actually believe. Crazy stuff.
The whole thing smells like (is) propaganda, but that's the age we live in.
protecting content, broadcast or otherwise, will spur the availability of high definition content
oh goody... we'll have high definition CRAP on TV now...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Will the new players be able to play unmarked video content? If not, I cannot view my own library of home videos I have created of my family. I will also be unable to electronically distribute my videos, even if I should desire to do so. Given the popularity of the "Reality TV" shows these days that depend on home video and security camera footage, this could be a problem for the TV networks looking for shows to broadcast.
Will I be able to mark my content in the same manner as the big studios do? If I cannot, then this "broadcast flag" becomes a means for the current content providers to effectively ban any new competition.
Will I be able to obtain technical details of the new flag in order that I may create my own recording/playback equipment that is compliant with this? If not, then it becomes a means of creating a monopoly in the consumer electronics market. If I can get the technical information, it becomes a joke as that same information would make it trivially easy to defeat the broadcast flag at will.
Now that it's virtually dead, I went to buy a Playstation recently, in order to play lots of old Square games.
I'm a Brit, and I have friends in the states, so I was planning on having them ship me some games (Chrono Trigger, etc, stuff you can't get here *at all*).
Now, I had a choice. I could not be able to play any import games, even ones that I purchased, or were purchased for me, or I could get my Playstation modded. I chose the latter.
Now, temptation wise, if somebody offers me a copied game, I probably won't say no. If they hadn't put stupid region locks on, I would probably never have bothered - it's nice to be honest sometimes, but since they force me to mod it in the first place, then it means odds are I will end up pirating something.
Everyone of these protections can be circumvented in the end - and if it's pushed too far (as with DVDs) you will turn a substantial proportion of your customers into criminals (or at the very least, people who are happy to change the way your system works)....
Look at the cost of a CD or DVD. This is set at the price just below the level that will reduce the popularity of the media. Other industries have competition to allow people to choose, and to force the market to give the consumers what they want at a price that has been negotiated. They have adapted to this, and have realised that determining what the customers want requires listening to the customers, or the they will be able to go to a competitor that does.
The media companies are used to giving the customer something, and if they don't accept it then they will go without. This has always applied to films, they want to make it apply to video equipment as well. They just aren't really aware of a competition based market.
If they were used to this sort of market, and if they really believed the costs of piracy were as great as they say, they would have designed this equipment, and subsidised the cost of electronic eqipment that uses it. I think a lot of people would choose a cheaper model if the more expensive one only allowed them to do extra stuff that they don't want to do.
The broadcast flag is used as information stating that the program may not be redistributed.
As long as they only turn on the flag during the commercials, sounds like a great idea!
It's more apparent when you've got your default font size set high, as I did, but even at a "normal" font the EFF FAQ hass almost no leading. (The space between one text line and the next, pronounced like the metal lead, as that's what was used in the earliest printing presses to produce said spacing.) Christ, these cascading style sheets are more pain than they're worth.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Just make your content the same way you've always been that's allowed you to play in a non-compliant player.
I'm totally opposed to any form of content tagging, whether it be a flag (gee, I wonder how I turn that off? Toggle it?), a digital watermark, or anything else.
The reason is simple: the studios and TV stations will always flip the flag to "not allowed to record". And then sue the pants off anyone who wants to tape the show for later.
Why bother having a tagging system if it is always going to be set to the same value, and that value is incompatible with common sense uses of the work?
I just hope that the EFF can get their FAQ seen by a sufficient number of politicians that lawmakers begin to see the futility and stupidity of access control tagging. A flag that is set to a constant value is no better than no flag at all.
The holy grail of copy protection is to keep everything off the internet, and thus, off the personal computer. General purpose computing devices are the biggest threat, and everything possible is being done to cripple them.
For now, we can get HD signals over component analog outputs, which when done right, are of excellent quality. And capture cards with component inputs will come around soon enough. Macrovision in these cards is often implemented or enabled through the drivers, which can and will be hacked. So if we're using an external tuner and a capture card, the video can end up on a computer, just as long as macrovision over component is defeated.
The enemy of this approach is the external tuner that refuses to output anything greater than 480p over component. We'll see about this - all TVs currently on the market will only accept HD signals over component, so this would be breaking compatibility with the entire installed base today. Mod chipping is a possibility here, or APEX-style hidden menus.
Some day, we'll have HD transferred digitally over 1394. It's a certainty that your 1394 tv will accept a signal only from an approved 1394 tuner and will output only to an approved 1394 recording device that implements DRM. But interestingly enough, I have a 1394 port on my computer right now.
I can transfer DV over 1394 from my camara to my computer. What's to stop me from transferring MPEG2 over it from my future tv? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only thing stopping me is a lack of driver support, and the DRM layer in firewire. The latter is the challenge: cracking DRM at the hardware level. All the EE geeks of the world have their jobs cut out for them.
So the question is this: how hard is it to build a black box that takes an mpeg2 video stream over 1394 and strips it of its copy protection? We usually can't fab our own ASICs, but what about FPGA? Can/will it reach high enough speeds to process firewire signals in realtime?
Ah well, I'm skeptical. It seems to be taking an increasing amount of sophistication to defeat DRM, and the one thing the underground community doesn't do too well is coordinate its efforts. It would need the cooperation of the EE geeks for the hardware level DRM, the CS geeks for making mpeg2 over firewire work on the PC, etc.
Nix absolutably seriousness.
The worst part about this is that they are actually thinking about phasing out RGB outputs on STBs. That would render most of the current HDTV sets obsolete.
The worst part is that they were all advertised as being HDTV ready and because they can not protect the RGB outputs/inputs they must go.
Class action anyone?
Appeared in the current issue (#62) of Widescreen review. It was with HDNet's Mark Cuban, of the Dallas Mavericks fame. A short synopsis is here. Check your local bookstore for the issue and checkout the whole interview. He's quite against all this crap, and prefers the existing system and chasing down people who records and then sells recordings without licensing first. He actually said in the interview that he wants people to record and give tapes to their friends. Note "give". Anyway, go read it on the newstand and be surprised.
The technology for the watermark will probably be propietary. All content providers will have tp pay a licensing fee to incluse this watermark. Let me guess, Microsoft owns the rights?
I AM, therefore I THINK!
Gee, you're optimistic. Since when have advertisers allowed people to copy their ads? If they shut off the broadcast flag, it would be trivial to skip everything until the broadcast flag comes back on. Why would the television networks allow people to skip over commercials like that? Besides, the networks want to be the sole distributers of advertisements. Why would they allow viewers to compete with them?
Many advertisements actually include a copyright notice. If someone were to intentionally shut off the broadcast flag, that would imply that they have surrendered the copyright on their content (just wait for the television networks to lobby for this). Pepsi would not be real happy to find their now public domain advertisement chopped up and used in KKK propoganda.
I Pledge allegiance to the broadcast flag of the Motion Picture Association of America, and to the restrictions for which it stands; one copyright, restricted, with freedom of access for none.
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]
Spain plundered the new world, but did little to invest in its own growth. Spain was overtaken by a more vibrant English entrepeneurship. The English in turn were overtaken by the Americans. The USA is slowly shifting from invovation and competition to protecting its current "turf". The symptons are numerous and not confined to the high-tech sector: steel tarrifs, soft-wood lumber tarrifs, encryption restrictions, computer export restriction, copyright extension, patent extension into software and process, and of course the DMCA and its bretheren.
I believe that I will see the USA lose its place of dominance within my lifetime as it stifles its own inovators in favour of the monied and stagnat corporate giants who hold sway over short-sighted and venal politicians.
From a Canadian point of view, this is a good thing.
Anarchists never rule
... Except, of course, that the number of anime releases by a major studio can likely be counted on one hand. (I'm thinking Akira and the the upcoming commercial release of the Cowboy Bebop movie, as well as the various implementations of Fuzzy Seizure Rodents.) In fact, with the exception of Manga (a relatively small company with few, although some major, licenced titles) and Pioneer (who tend to be overpriced to begin with, IMHO), the domestic anime companies tend to avoid using Macrovision or regioning at all unless it's stipulated in the license - in fact, this is the official policy of ADV, the largest US anime translator/distributor.
/. stance on the MPAA may well be hypocritical... enthusiasm for anime releases is rarely an example of such. ^^
So... well the
The bird's legs are broken for me, plsfixkthxbye.
Because Mickey Mouse says so. Be a good girl and go play with your Jack Valenti voodoo doll.
nowhere was it said that the compliant player wouldn't play media that doesn't include the necessary copy protection bits...no way am I buying all my DVD's again.
Exactly. Apparently "honesty" here is defined as technical inability to break the copy protection AND lack of any friends or contacts who are able to break the copy protection.
Hey MPAA, DVDs already have copy protection, and that doesn't stop them from being swapped on P2P file sharing systems, IRC, FTP servers, and person to person via burner (just like floppies in the old days). Do you really think that this will be better than DVD/CSS security?
BTW I was in Fry's Electronics yesterday and was astonished to see how cheap the various CD-RW and DVD-R/RW/whatever drives are (hadn't bothered to look at prices for a while). Remember the days (late 80s) when the main mode of copying software was floppy swap meets? One person cracked the copy protection, then folks physically went over to someone else's house where they made a copy for each person who then went home and did the same thing. CD-R[W] drives and media are in a similar price range now, and I see the same thing happening with CDs that I saw with floppies years ago. It's totally feasible to go over to your friend's house, bring a PC or two with you, and sit there and burn 100 or more CDs at a time.
This is just a historical reminder about why copy protection is a foolish endeavor. The only difference between nobody being able to copy something and everybody being able to copy something is that one guy who cracks it. If you know anybody who has acquired a cracked copy, then everybody you know can get one.
It's kinda like buying illegal drugs - if you want them, and you know somebody you trust who has them, you can get them. I bet that for every person who is sure they couldn't get them (and thus that the drug war is being won) there is a friend who can get them whom they just haven't bothered to ask yet. Hello, entertainment industry, welcome to your own private drug war. I can't wait to pay taxes for cops to put DVD copiers in jail right next to potheads.
How about this for a local TV money maker =>
:-(
You child gets on TV for winning a spelling contest, or the TV visits the day care or whatever. You can record, You can make backup copies. Sounds good right?
They will probably have a simple flag to tell you machine to encript the data deeply oin the tape. Using its own specific, nonportable key
Now you can not send grandma a tape, when your tape deck dies, you also discover that you can not read these tapes on anything other than the machine which recorded them first.
How much good does it do you to backup something if the drive is dead?
Now if you want something you will have to a$k the local station for a copy that is open. I am sure that will be free as in beer
It's simple. Any station utilizing this station gets limited in their duration of use - say, 2 hours of flag usage per week. Hollywood gets theirs, consumers don't get horrifically inconvenienced. It would be absolutely prohibited to use the flag on any news broadcasts or children's programming. Should they overuse their quota of flag time, they get tagged with a $20k (increasing by $5k/month/month (exponentially) if a broadcaster chronically does this, to prevent them working lawbreaking into their cost of business) fine per 15 minutes of misusage of the public airwaves, rounded up in 15-minute blocks.
This idea forces them to use their quota in the wisest way possible. New X-files episode? Sunday night movie? They get free reign of what to do with their 2-hour lock-out block (in 30-minute increments, again, so as to keep them from trying to spread their block across all of their shows). After that, they're toast until next week, and whatever they don't use they can carry over at a 25% deduction per week of stale usage.
Also, the flag would not permit them to block PVR (Tivo/Replay) usage in any way - the PVR would have to pass the do-not-copy flag to prevent archiving or moving online.
All of this is because of the simple problem that RealNetworks caused by providing this "flag" concept for RealPlayer streams. It was abused. RealPlayer Plusses could NOT EVER record streams because there was no incentive offered to a broadcast without the damn flag. Regulatory limits are cumbersome but should be their only door for this kind of confounded idea.
In order to broadcast over the public airwaves in the US, you need to adhere to certain broadcast standards, so certain words, body parts, reproductive activity and bodily functions are not allowed to be on boradcast TV.
This pretty much degrades most films by simple "editing for TV".
The pirate does not get a "perfect copy" of an MPAA broadcast, but can of various made-for-TV type programs.
The pirate can get heavily edited, time-compressed, censored versions. Those that want flawless "perfect" copies of MPAA material can go to the DVD counter at the local store.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Let's put this into law and call it the Stamp Act of 2002. For those of you who don't know what the Stamp Act was because you relied on public education, read a book sometime.
Put your money where your fingers are, uh, so to speak.
How many RIAA movies have you bought or rented this year? Now that you've contributed to them, it's time to offset that by joining the EFF.
There's a bargain membership for $25.
$65 gets you membership and a T-Shirt that says, "Online Freedom Doesn't Just Happen."
$100 also gets you a cap.
Use your employer's matching gifts program, if there is one.
Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. - Yoda
Every honest citizen of the United States (which I am not) have to know that and thus have to support 'R1AFOCSHPWHFHMCAHPFCPATITUIJ Act' a.k.a. 'Remove 1st Amendment From Our Constitution So Honest Politiacians With Help From Honest Media Coprorations And Honest Police Forces Can Put All Terorist In The Universe Into Jail . Act'.
Disclaimer: This is irony.
hany
It's encrypted in ROT13. Use "caesar" on UNIX to decode.
This message is a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I would like to thank the "One Hundred Fifth Congress of the United States of America AT THE SECOND SESSION" for enabling this message to be posted.
-Valen
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:-)
Broadcast flags channel:
9.00 AM - Union flag from the U.K.
9.05 AM - Stars and stripes from the U.S.A.
9.10 AM - Blue and yellow European flag
etc...
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Got to be better than another shopping channel, though
This may be a very naive question, but I am still curious.
Why do organizations which are obviously selfish (ignoring specifics), such as the MPAA, have better luck at lobbying for legislation than organizations which are obviously sincere and looking out for the people, such as the EFF?
Yes, I'm sure that money exchanges hands and that there is a little corruption involved. However, I cannot see how there is *that* much corruption to justify things like the DeCSS outcome and the undeserved resilience of the DMCA. Do most legislators really buy what the MPAA says?
I know the EFF is too honest to slip any money under the table, but I (perhaps naively) don't believe that the MPAA benefits too much from those tactics, so it seems like there has to be something else.
I have also spoken to a few politicians (Senators), and they always seem to be at least moderately intelligent and concerned. Yes, I know most of that is an act, but I can't see how a group of people of average (or better than average) intelligence can come to the conclusions that the US government has in recent times.
I fear that things like this are going to go MPAA's way, and I don't even understand how that's possible...
Source code is a lot like a parachute; it needs to be open in order to function properly.
They sure love the word spur, which is derived from the term used to kick the shit out of a horse to get it going. A spur is a sharp instrument worn on the ankle of an abusive cowboy to beat a tired horse into submission.
Hm, I have a pair of 20mm rowel-less Stubben offset stainless steel spurs at home, and I don't remember their being sharp (actually, they're quite blunt), and I'm certainly no "abusive cowboy." On the other hand, I'm an accomplished English-style equestrienne who has had to deal with horses who are more fractious than tired (note: all the spurring in the world won't rouse an exhausted horse), and "kicking the shit" out of the kind of horse who needs spurs is liable to land you face-down in the dirt -- don't laugh, I've seen it happen. A nudge to the nag is usually sufficient...
I will admit that this metaphor of the MPAA's is extremely clumsy. The sense, here, in this case, is more that they're guiding a bunch of testy technologists and cranky consumers into cooperating with them (they haven't quite got curb chains and Kimblewicks on us yet!).
Now, mind you, coercion is still coercion, and I'm not happy about it one bit (chortle chortle). After all, we're not ponies, we're profit.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
How long will it be before the HD boxes are set up to "phone-home" the list of all the flagged shows seen on your TV?
It'll be bundled wih some type of "feature", like PVR.Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
How can it be possible that an organization whose sole purpose is to make money by supplying consumers with what they want no longer be paying attention to what the consumers want?
remember, TV stations sell YOU the AUDIENCE to their advertisers. When they sell "air time" to advertisers, they claim that they can guarantee Y amount of eyes watching an add spot for X amount of dollars. (Y generally depends on the time of day, popularity of the program running at that time, etc...)
The only thing I read that was similar to what you said was in the answer to the question:
When the broadcast flag is implemented, can I record any TV program with my existing digital player/recorder and watch it later at more convenient time?
The relevant portion reads:
However, when Broadcast Flag-compliant DTV receivers are introduced in the marketplace, their recordings will only play on other compliant players and not on older (legacy) devices. Of course, you can still record and playback digital programs with any existing analog videocassettes recorders/players.
In redux, It is the older players that won't play the new formats, not the other way around. Easy to get confused...but if you did read something else, somewhere else, let me know.